Results for Goose Island Tap Room

interviews

106Beach Slang

Beach Slang's music is at home in a loud, crowded, sweaty club with an energetic crowd singing along to every word. But at their core the songs are sincere, emotional and from the heart. So it makes sense that the writing process starts with just singer and guitarist James Alex and an acoustic guitar. If the songs can hold up in that form, he says, then he“makes it loud and they become Beach Slang.”James treated Jim and Greg, and a crowd of fans at the Goose Island Tap Room in Chicago to a special acoustic performance featuring songs from Beach Slang's new album A Loud Bash Of Teenage Feelings. James talks about starting a band while raising a family, his songwriting process and his on-going pursuit of happiness in a world full of muck.

61Ted Leo

This week, Jim and Greg are joined by singer-songwriter Ted Leo in front of an audience at the Goose Island Tap Room in Chicago. Leo gained fame in the early attention with his tuneful yet political approach to punk rock with his band the Pharmacists. But it's been seven years since Leo's last album. In that time, he formed a successful collaboration with Aimee Mann as The Both (who were Sound Opinions guests in 2014). But his family also suffered emotional and financial crises, which inform his ambitious new album, The Hanged Man.

The album's expansive sound is the product of being able to tinker alone in his new home studio in Rhode Island. No longer on a label, Leo crowdfunded the album through Kickstarter and released it himself. Ted Leo discusses how his personal turmoil affected his music and how his fanbase gave him a lift. He also gives an intimate solo performance of songs from The Hanged Man.

105Drive-By Truckers

Eleven albums into their career, Drive-By Truckers have written perhaps their most provocative and timely album to date American Band. Tackling politics, race relations, gun violence, and rebellion the album holds a mirror up to the current feelings of division in the United States. But the album has a groove to it as well — it doesn't feel like a civics lessons. For all those reasons the album was a favorite of both Jim and Greg in 2016. Drive-By Truckers are no strangers to Sound Opinions but this time the prinipal songwriters Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley joined Jim and Greg and an audience at the Goose Island Tap Room in Chicago for an interview and an exclusive acoustic performance. Hood and Cooley talked about inspiration, resistance, and how two college roommates have been making music together for more than 30 years.